On the upcoming New Year's Day, films such as "Twinkle Twinkle Star", "Goldfinger", "If You Are the One 3" and "The Annual Party Can't Stop" will be released one after another. Currently, pre-sales for this period have exceeded 300 million yuan.

The leading film of this period, "Twinkle Twinkle Star", has been outperforming the previous "Detective Chinatown 3" since its pre-sale, relying on its strong IP appeal and successful "Snow" marketing. The pre-sale box office record for Chinese-language films has been maintained and has continued to grow steadily in the following years. The current total pre-sale box office has reached 278 million yuan.

"Twinkle Twinkle Star" poster

For the snow, the theater pays for it at its own expense

The movie "Twinkle Twinkle Star" is adapted from the TV series of the same name. The film is directed by Chen Xiaoming and Zhang Pan and stars Qu Chuxiao and Zhang Jianing. The film tells the youthful love story of Zhang Wansen and Lin Beixing as they travel through time and space cycles. Lin Beixing softly said "Zhang Wansen, it's snowing", which is a classic part of the series. This line has also become the main quotation in the movie trailer and the creative source of marketing "Snow Field".

At first, the distributor Maoyan launched the romantic idea of "Snow Field" with an opening time of 13:14 in 1,314 theaters across the country, with snow falling in the theater. This initiative attracted a large number of viewers to buy tickets. Tickets marked as "Snow Resort" in theaters across the country were almost full, making it difficult to get a ticket.

Cinema snow effect

For some time afterwards, the controversy about the "snow resort" continued. On the one hand, there was a wave of ticket refunds suspected to be caused by many viewers not buying "Snow Park". The number of ticket refunds exceeded one million, making the film's pre-sale results filled with controversy. On the other hand, the recent news on Weibo that some theaters have canceled "snow resorts" due to safety concerns has also been trending.

It is reported that Maoyan's original idea of "snowing" was to distribute snowy gas tanks to theaters that signed up for the event. However, because theaters are closed places, gas tanks pose safety risks, so some theaters and theater chains stopped "snowing". "Rehearsal.

Previously, Vientiane Cinema issued an announcement on Weibo, saying that in order to effectively protect the personal and property safety of the audience, the cinema has decided to cancel the special snow event of the movie "Twinkle Twinkle Star" that will be released from December 30 to 31. It was later confirmed that many theater chains said they had received such fire-related notifications and decided to cancel snow canning.

But there are also some theaters that choose to carry out the ritual to the end with their audiences. In fact, after the "Snow Resort" was launched and became popular, some theaters immediately followed up and joined the snow bandwagon by purchasing their own snowmaking machines.

The manager of a theater in Shanghai told The Paper that he had missed the registration for Maoyan while on a business trip. Later, he found out that it was not a "snow resort" and the audience was unwilling to buy it, so the theater purchased a snowmaking machine at its own expense. After all the shows "snowed", the pre-sale situation in almost every show was very gratifying.

Judging from the information on major ticketing platforms, it is true that the sales status of shows marked as "snowy" is much higher than that of non-snowing shows. The official 13:14 time slot is almost fully sold out, and many theaters Other information was also marked with words such as "each venue is also a snow resort" and "each venue will provide free snow".

Some netizens on Weibo also revealed that the film studio will cooperate with theaters to upgrade snowmaking machines and provide subsidies of up to 500 yuan for official snow resort theaters that cooperate.

However, some theater managers expressed concerns when talking about this operation. Although a snowmaking machine was purchased to sell tickets, the snow produced by the snowmaking machine will melt into water, and excessive spraying will not be good for the theater seats. At the same time, snowmaking will increase the cleaning work of the theater in the middle of the show. In recent years, theater staff have been reduced to the point of being stretched thin, and "Twinkle Twinkle Star" currently accounts for a large proportion of the film schedule, with a large number of snow-making sessions, which is not friendly to the theater. If the snow spraying time is too long or the amount of snow is too large, it will actually affect the movie viewing experience for the audience. Therefore, the specific "snowing" method may only be "meaningful" at that time. But this makes this practitioner worry that the audience's expectations for snow are too high, and if the experience is not good, they will be disappointed and complain.

Label movie scenes as a new operation

In addition to the "Snow Field", other scenes of "Twinkle Twinkle Stars" are also designed with special sayings, such as the "I like you" scene at 15:20, the "Love Has Echoes" scene at 17:20, and the "Love Has Echoes" scene at 19:20. :20 is a "no regrets" scene... and the film's successful release has brought a new wave of film marketing, and films released in the same period have also labeled themselves in the release time slot. Such as "The annual meeting cannot be stopped!" "After work" has appeared in the "after get off work" label, and during its screening period, some theaters also launched "beer venues" that give away beer upon admission.

"Goldfinger", released on the same day, has special scenes labeled "Bright Future" at 15:18 and "Breaking Fortune" at 20:18. Feng Xiaogang once again competed in the Lunar New Year film "If You Are the One 3" and was labeled "You Are the One" at the 11:11 screening.

Another love movie "Your Wedding" released on the same day pointed out to the audience the hidden tricks in different schedules in a newly released set of materials. For example, choose to go into the theater to watch "Your Wedding" at 22:15 on December 31. "Your Wedding", then you will hear the leading actor Xu Guanghan say "Thank you for appearing in my life" at midnight on the New Year; if you walk into the theater at 4:10 pm, you will hear Xu Guanghan at 5:20 pm Confession, "Will you be with me?"

At present, the total pre-sale box office for New Year's Day has exceeded 300 million yuan, of which the pre-sales of "Twinkle Twinkle Star" reached 278 million yuan, accounting for more than half of the first-day screenings in theaters across the country on the first day of its release.